Entertainment

Why 'Inside Out' is Pixar's biggest tear-jerker yet

EMERYVILLE, California — When it comes to hitting cinematic emotional sweet spots, Pixar has an impeccable record. Their latest endeavor, Inside Out, packs the biggest wallop yet — as it should, in that it's about emotions and their effect on memories and personality.

The story centers on 11-year-old Riley, who's adjusting to a move from Minnesota to San Francisco. But the real stars are the dueling emotions helping her along the way: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling).

Forget that much of the film revolves around the mind and volatile emotions of a prepubescent girl. This Pixar film is for and about all of us.

Mashable was recently treated to a behind-the-scenes sneak peek with the film's creative forces. Allow directors Pete Docter (Up, Monsters Inc.) and co-director Ronnie del Carmen (above, center) and Co. to explain how and why Inside Out is their biggest tear-jerker to date:

The film's inspiration is personal

The concept for Inside Out came from director Pete Docter's (above, right) experience with his daughter Ellie (who also inspired and voiced the young character of the same name in Up) as she grew into young adulthood.

"I would just kind of observe her as opposed to really engage her," recalled Docter. "Because I don't know that even she knew kind of what was going on in there. I know I didn't at that age. You're just kind of experiencing it and things happen to you, it almost feels. In fact, that's one of the big things of growing up I think is realizing, 'I have some ownership of this. I'm feeling angry, that doesn't mean I have to act on it.'"

The central theme is the fleeting innocence of childhood

"We wanted to make a straight point for Joy that her time [in control of Riley's emotions] is limited," said Docter. "That Joy is looking down the barrel, she's only going to be kind of running things for a little amount of time and she's like, 'I'm not going to let that happen.' So we wanted to kind of really showcase that to the audience as well, that Joy is not running in Dad or Mom, it's one of these other characters. We weren't trying to say anything sort of blanket about men or women at all, but I think there are people that we observed that tend to have a temperament, everybody has a temperament, and though they might be happy they'll go back to being sort of sullen, they have a general sullen temperament or angry [one]."

Happiness isn't forever ... or for everyone

Producer Jonas Rivera (above, left) said it best: "There's something about this movie and about memories and honoring that. But also the fact that you can't always be 8 years old."

It's those universally relatable aspects that hit you hard, coupled with the beautiful way they're animated. Docter added that wanting to be happy is something to which we can all relate.

"We all want happiness in our life," he said. "I mean, there's so many books on like, how to be happy and what you need for happiness and you want that for your kid too, you want your kid to be happy. We literally tell our kids, 'Don't to be sad,' and yet there is a real value to all the other emotions that is part of the richness of life and it's not until you really recognize that I think you really have the ability to connect with the world in a deeper way. And with sadness specifically, in America you read about people medicating to avoid sadness. They don't want to experience sadness and yet it's such a vital part of being human."

The weird-but-true science of our emotions

"Inside Out": It's just science.

Image: Disney/Pixar

During pre-production, the filmmakers spent a lot of time studying brain science and psychology. Not that the entire film is scientific fact — but it inspires plenty of its elements.

"Weird things like it's at night that the short -term memories are rerouted into long-term memory. That was something we read somewhere," Docter said. "That sparked this whole idea of this cool kinetic ball-like sculpture, they all go down once she goes to sleep ... so there's a lot of stuff that was based on research, some stuff that was based on observation, and some stuff we just made up."

Del Carmen added that the most helpful bit of research for him was learning that our emotions don't drive us, they only make us feel a certain way.

"We had to ask experts because we had this conundrum, '[Emotions] are inside our head, aren't they making decisions?' [We thought] collectively they were Riley's personality, so the experts told us it's like our emotions are there to actually compel you, to suffuse you, to prepare you to behave. It happens so quickly that you react right away but you are not your emotions, you can choose not to act out your anger. That helped us because it separated our characters from Riley, that they are not only the guardians, they believe in what they do.

"Emotions learn to calibrate," del Carmen continued. "When you're a kid you have these very pure, single-minded emotions and when you get older you have sophisticated versions. Sadness grows up to be empathy, so all of those emotions have their kind of bad side, like sadness can lead you to depression but sadness is there to prepare you so that you can express that you're sad."

Still don't believe us on that increased cry factor? We'll let animator Victor Navone (who worked on Finding Nemo, WALL-E, Toy Story 3) have the final, succinct word: "We have more cries than any other in this film."

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